Off To Bilbao
I think, I might be flying off to Bilbao on Sunday. I’ve found a nice hotel by the Guggenheim Museum and then it will be home by train, staying nights in Biarritz, Bordeaux and possibly,Paris.
Are BT Winding Me Up?
BT have said, I can’t have fibre-optic broadband, as I’m too close to the exchange. But this poster has appeared opposite my house, on a BT box.
That is just not on. So should I complain to OFCOM?
A Quick Analysis Of Bank Phishing E-Mails
I have been collecting bank phishing e-mails since July.
I’ve received a hundred and six of them, with most banks being mentioned a couple of times. The scores were as follows.
Halifax – 2
Nationwide – 2
HSBC – 9
Santander – 2
Lloyds – 2
But this is dwarfed by twenty six aimed at customers of RBS and Natwest. Let’s face it, if you’re a phishing expert, you might target a bank with well-publices problems, as an e-mail about security issues might be expected. Incidentally, I’ve never had an e-mail of any sort from Nationwide, except for a monthly one, to say that my statement is ready. But that has no links in it.
So that is another reason to leave the bank, as because you are obviously not that savvy in staying with them, you might be the sort of person, who falls victim to the scam.
But I wouldn’t think of moving to Barclays, as they score a massive 53 in the period.
It would seem to me, that the time you are most vulnerable to scams is just after you’ve changed banks, so as there are still Barclays phishing e-mails flying around, I’d avoid them.
Would Any Sane Person Bank with RBS?
RBS had yet another computer failure last night, as reported here on the BBC.
This would appear to be the third time, after this failure in March and the one referred to here in 2012.
If you search this blog for Natworst, you’ll find a few more customer service failures.
Show me someone who banks with RBS or one of their sorry subsidiaries and I’ll show you an idiot! Why haven’t they moved their account away from this complete travesty of a company? The answer must be a five letter word beginning with I.
Passwords
The BBC has an article on their web site today about passwords for Internet sites.
I go in to lots of sites and there are some I never use as their security doesn’t suit me.
If a site insists, I use a shift to enter a password, then that company doesn’t get my business. I think that Verified by Visa insists on this, so I never use my Visa card on-line. So if I see an on-line transaction, when I check my Visa account, I know it’s fraud.
Incidentally, I think it’s a good idea to only use one card for on-line transactions and keep that secure in a close place by your computer.
My passwords are generally based on phone numbers, that I remember from my childhood, which were like the classic Whitehall 1212, which was Scotland Yard. You can check your password here. They say, that it would take a PC a thousand years to crack one of my passwords. But even my immediate family wouldn’t probably have known the number.
And all it was was an old London phone number.
Even the last phone number I had in Suffolk, which was Thurlow 789, would take a computer 10 days. The previous phone number at Debach, which was on a small exchange called Charsfield and was just three digits, would take a thousand years. Unless of course you had my details from the 1970s.
Incidentally, if I translate my current phone number, back to the exchange name that would take 27 years. If you want to translate your London number, there’s a list here.
So it would appear you can be both lazy and secure!
Peer-to-Peer Lending Sites Compared
I found this page, which compares peer-to-peer lending sites across the world.
It’s interesting reading and if nothing else it shows how peer-to-peer lending sites are starting up all over the world.
There’s a rumour that a forward-thinking person is opening a toilet paper shop in the City, with a branch in the new Canary Wharf station-cum shopping centre.
You don’t need laws to curb the excesses of bankers, you need to innovate them out of a job.
What Did The Pope Say To Putin?
Obviously,no-one knows exactly, but The Sunday Times has a picture of their meeting, with an added speech bubble for the Pope saying.
So what’s it like, being infallible?
I hope Pope Francis gave Putin some sound advice!
It’s Only A Railway Station!
One of the reasons, I went East today, was to take some pictures of the roof structure of the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station. I went to Poplar on the DLR and these are some images that I took of the new station.
It is looking that it could end up being the most spectacular station in London.
But then the station bit will probably a bit boring, buried deep under the edifice, you see in the pictures.
Most of what you can see will be an upmarket shopping centre, with a garden on the top under the open timber roof.
It certainly isn’t a bad effort at a station on an underground suburban railway.
But then it is probably best to think of this station as part of the Canary Wharf Estate, rather than part of Crossrail. After all they are paying over half a billion pounds to build it.
How many shopping centres are integrated into the transport systems of the city or area they serve? The answer could be written on the back of a postage stamp, without disturbing the adhesive.
Cinderella Is My Friend
Most Sundays, I go South and East from where I live to Canary Wharf, the Thames or Greenwich. Today was no exception, as I wanted to see the new roof on Canary Wharf Crossrail station and get a bit of shopping in the excellent Waitrose at Canary Wharf.
Today, I picked up the Docklands Light Railway at Shadwell, as I often do.
I’ve referred to this line as Cinderella before, as in the current vogue for grand railways and other schemes, she seems to get forgotten, as she trundles passengers reliably around the East of London, giving superb views of the canals, docks and buildings, both old and new.
But then she is like me; a London mongrel, with an ancestry from all over the place. The railway was born out of the need for to create a transport system on the cheap. The trouble is, that the engineers and staff, felt that despite the budget, they could create something special.
And they did!
They’ve now even created audio guides to each line, as this poster advertises.
Advertising The DLR Audio Guides
I don’t think they’d work so well for the Underground.
Cinderella just has so much to show you!
And where else can kids of all ages, play at driving the trains? Copenhagen and Turin.
But why oh why, is there not another use of the technology in the UK or the wider world? I just think, Cinderella isn’t sexy enough for the great and good. But then she’ll still be here, when all of the current bunch of idiots are pushing up the daisies.
The Anonymous Widower 